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A Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) is a specialized processor dedicated to the creation of the images visualized on the screen. It implements a set of the most frequently used graphics primitive operations, so as the CPU is not involved in the time-expensive graphical computation. GPUs, originally designed for personal computers, are currently used in many other kinds of devices, such as mobile phones, games consoles, tablets, or embedded systems. In a PC a GPU can be included as a standalone graphic card (usually in the mid-high-level solutions) or embedded in the motherboard (in low-level models). Finally, at the end of 2010, CPUs with integrated GPU were released: a solution particularly efficient to reduce communication times among the processors and to limit battery consumption in mobile devices (as notebooks or netbooks).
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Lombardi, L., Dondi, P. (2013). GPU. In: Dubitzky, W., Wolkenhauer, O., Cho, KH., Yokota, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Systems Biology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9863-7_1308
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9863-7_1308
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9862-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9863-7
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